


Breathing Room

by yespolkadot_kitty



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Smut, POV Abbie, Smut, catacombs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:17:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6449674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie's memories of the catacombs haunt her. Ichabod suggests they make some new ones. Set during S3, ep 17. AU (more's the pity).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thymelady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymelady/gifts).



> A gift for my lovely friend @thymelady, who has been most encouraging, as well as an all-around fantastic person.
> 
> HEART EYES MF

They paused together in the dimness of the catacombs. In the chamber where Abbie had spent her days, weeks, months. Playing chess with imagination-Crane. Speaking with him.

She shivered, and then remembered again that _she was not alone. Not today._

Ichabod stood from where he had been crouched down, examining her makeshift chess pieces.  “A penny for your thoughts, perhaps?”

She leaned into him. He was so…. _Sturdy._ Like an oak tree in the wind, he wouldn’t bow. He would stay strong and by her side, no matter what. The concrete certainty of it made her stomach settle, even in this horrid place. This place that she couldn’t escape, even in her dreams. Especially not in her nightmares.

“Just trying to erase ten months of memories. It’s damn near impossible.”

Impossible to look around her without the stomach-clenching, soul-destroying fear of being trapped again. Of ten more months without anyone she loved.

Of ten  more months without _him._

“It’s here every time I close my eyes.”

He slipped an arm around her, and she felt the gentle pressure of his chin on the top of her head, then the slight shift as he kissed her hair. The gesture warmed her. They had progressed to this. From warm glances to smiles, to hugs, to hand-holding, and, the scorpion-incident and today, dropping kisses on each other.

“And what if we were to change that?”

Abbie pulled away slightly to look up into his eyes, dark blue in the dim light. “What do you mean?”

He cleared his throat, and she saw – or did she? – a blush creep up his throat. _A blush?_ Since when did Crane blush?

Since he had found her smalls in the washing basket. Since she had gone to the trouble of buying him his favourite donuts and pastries. Since they’d all but had hand sex the day of her return from this brutal, grey place.

“I only thought – what if we were to create some new memories to – what is the term – record over the bad ones?”

She didn’t miss the fire in his eyes as he’d spoken. “I was here ten months. We’d have to create some damned good ones.”

“Oh, Lieutenant.” His voice dropped an octave. “We will. As long as you trust me.”

A storm of butterflies took flight in her stomach. “With my life.”

“Good.” He set his satchel and the carefully wrapped flag aside on a nearby rock – one she’d used as a chair, or a bed, whatever she needed at the time. It hadn’t been particularly useful as either one. “Now come here.”

Bemused, but trusting him completely, she stepped up to him,  until only a breath separated their bodies. He was about to spout some historical speech or similar. No, he’d pluck a book from the ether and read an inspiring passage from Washington. _Lord._ No, he’d relate a tale of Betsy Ross and how she had-

He kissed her.

It didn’t start as a kiss. Not really. It started as just a ghosting of his lips over hers, once, twice, three times, until she thought she might go mad from the sandalwood scent of him, the tickling brush of his short bread, the steady cadence of his breathing. The steadiness of _him._ A man who would forever have her back.

A man who was dangerously close to forever having her heart.

Then he gently set his hands on her shoulders, sliding them down to her upper arms, gently coaxing her to put her arms around him. She complied at the slight hesitation, slipping her small hands under the open sides of his woollen coat, a coat that was as much a part of him as his mane of hair, as his archaic vocabulary, as his love of tea.

He continued to kiss her so, so gently, until she bunched her hands into fists in the soft, oft-washed material of his shirt. Only then did he deepen the kiss, parting her lips with his and touching his tongue to hers. The result was electric, and Abbie felt as if a dam had burst inside her. She clutched harder at his shirt and pressed herself into him, without any conscious thought except _more. This. Now._

Ichabod stroked a hand down her hair, and for a second reality seeped back in and she broke the kiss. “As…. Surprising as this is, we’ve got a mission.”

His blue gaze held hers, calm as the ocean on a summer’s day. “One at which you’ll be no help if stress consumes you,” he reasoned. “And, time passes slower here, does it not? Which allows us…. Some breathing room.”

Since she couldn’t think of a retort to that, and since she wanted to taste him again, she lifted her face to his. And he kissed her again. And again, until her head spun with the glory of it. With the heated rush of it.

Her heart leapt into her throat when his clever mouth moved to her neck, then the sensitive place where her pulse rabbited. She barely noticed him unzip and slip off her thick coat, worn to ward off the chill on the lake. Underneath she wore a sweater, and, dizzy with his drugging kisses, she allowed him to curl his fingers under the hem and slowly lift it off.

She stood before him, in her vest top and jeans, feeling naked, her body singing all the notes of desire. And just when she thought he would take off more clothes, he kissed her again, starting the cycle over, until she clung to him, arms around his neck, completely boneless, all sensation focused on the places where his mouth and hands touched her.

At some point she recovered enough of her senses to ask, “How long have you…”

His blue eyes crackled fire as he answered. “Longer than you can ever imagine.”

It was those words which finally undid her.

It happened quickly after that. She helped him with her own clothes, until she stood naked before him. A muscle in his cheek ticked, and she could see his restraint as clearly as if he held it before him. But he only whispered; “An hundred years should go to praise /Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.”

Poetry. She should have known. Somehow it grounded the moment. Let her know who she was here with.

And the _who_ was all that mattered.

She stepped towards him. “Your clothes, now.”

“In a moment. I must ensure that these rocky surfaces don’t scratch that beautiful skin.” He shrugged off his coat, and, after searching around for a moment, laid it, inner material facing up, on a patch of ground. He stared at it for a second, obviously unhappy with the bed he had made, and her heart broke at the anguish on his face. “I thought – it’s hardly adequate.”

She crossed to him and again looped her arms around his neck. “No. It’s perfect. So show me what you thought of when you wanted to make new memories.”

Heat snapped in his eyes and he scooped her up in his arms, laying her so gently on the bed of his coat that she thought he feared she might break.

And she might yet, if he didn't follow through with the promise written starkly on his face.

As she lay back, he busied himself showing her without words how he’d dreamed of her. He showed her with his mouth and with his long, clever hands. Until she sobbed his name. Until her body arched, cat-like, under his ministrations. Until she clung to him, her breath coming in harsh pants, her muscles clenching like a hot vise around his fingers, her own hands fisted in his hair. Until she forgot everything about this place, except the man who undid her so completely.

As she lay in a blissful haze, watching through half-lidded eyes, he quickly removed the remainder of his clothes, revealing a whipcord form, leanly muscled. His body was more fantasy than reality – and if she admitted to it, she had fantasized about it _plenty_.

He lowered himself to her, and she eagerly wrapped herself around him, sliding her legs over his, tangling her hands in his glorious hair.

“I’ll never look at this coat the same way again,” she teased as he positioned himself, the hot length of him only a breath away.

“Nor shall I.” He dropped a kiss on her lips and moved against her, tearing a groan from them both. And then she tilted her hips, and in one smooth movement, he filled her.

They were both silent for a long moment, drinking each other in, body and soul. And when he moved, Abbie’s entire world did, too.

For moments that seemed to bleed into hours, their bodies rose and fell together,  the only sound in the room their breaths. Abbie smoothed her hands over every part of his body within her reach, learning the curves and angles of his long, lean frame. Feeling his heart beat under her palm. Arching against the bristles of his beard as he nipped at her neck. It would leave a mark. She looked forward to the memento.

She came with complete abandon, and he tumbled over the sharp precipice of pleasure with her, his body going rigid. She swallowed his hoarse cry of her name, whispering his afterwards as they clung to each other, riding out the aftershocks.

He’d been right to do this, Abbie thought afterwards, as they helped eachother dress, unable to resist a few more stolen kisses. As she looked around this desolate chamber, the fear ebbed slowly away, replaced by something else.

Replaced with the warm, heady rush of newly discovered love.

And the fact that she’d never be able to look at his coat again without feeling very, very naughty indeed.

If this was the end of the world, then _bring it on_ , she thought fiercely as she took his hand, their fingers lacing together as their bodies had done only moments ago. She could face anything with this man by her side.

 


End file.
